Fox in Snow

[Enug]

A change from birds.;)

103014

[Perendale]

Really good June!

Brett

[Enug]

Thanks Brett - I haven't yet managed the realism with watercolour that I can achieve with an airbrush. Keeping to the watercolour brushes in ARV it is hard to make fine marks and still have it resemble real watercolour. It is also hard to duplicate the 'blossoms' made by painting wet on wet.

[markw]

I like this too, from an artistic point of view the Red Fox’s colouring always works well against a snowy background!:cool:

If I may be so bold as to make a couple of personal general observations based on how I paint even though my stuff is not at the watery end of the spectrum that I believe you are going for…

One of the main things that will really help “sell” the Watercolour look is in getting some more paint “texture” into the colours.
For want of a better term watery watercolour paint can have a certain “gritty” look about it as it settles into the paper and sometimes from the type of pigment itself.
Specific layers set to Overlay and Colour Burn being my favoured blend modes for these texture layers, mostly placed at the top of the layer stack but sometimes lower down if needed applied globally and/or just to specific areas.
But I find that they really need to be setup before starting the actual painting as they will affect how the colours under them will look. Which also means picking and using colours off a reference image doesn’t work so well.
But this is no bad thing as it helps train your eye in judging what colour/shade should be used!

And sticking with Layers;
Using a couple or more layers in painting the same area can help and often I will slightly alter the colour, thinners, brush, that layer’s texture, etc, etc… before merging them down to the final “finished” single layer or Grouping them.

And then there’s AR’s Watercolour brush!
It’s OK strait out of the box, but without at least those texture layers it is a little lacklustre.
(And why, after all these years dose it still only come with a Round Head!?)
So bless it, but it dose need help from other tools at times!
For me that help comes mostly from the Pallet Knife! Not just in blending colours but for wetting out areas and edges too.
But also the Custom Brush and Sticker Spray all have their moments.
The reality is that in digitally making what may look like it was applied with just one type of brush in the real world, in AR can often mean using multiple techniques to really sell that look.

Sorry June:o:o, this was going to be just a short post about liking your Fox, which by the way has a nice tension in it’s stance:cool:

[Enug]

Thanks, Mark for that valuable information which I always appreciate. I shied away from textures in this painting as I wasn't happy with the colour change which resulted. I hadn't thought about adjusting the colour to accommodate that change. I guess I'm being stubborn in persisting with using only the watercolour brushes, palette knife, and gloop brush to attain the watercolour look. I would love to replicate the dropping of colour onto a wet paper and see it 'bloom'.

[Perendale]

I use textures but sometimes I turn them to greyscale, that way they don’t interfere with my colours, but mostly I use them in glorious technicolour.

And I have never really found a way in ArtRage to get wet I wet colours to “bloom”. And I’ve tried many different ways. There was a watercolourist used to post here - Steve somebody - and he was very clever with lots of good ideas. He did have videos on U-toob, but that was back in the days of Artrage3!!!

Brett

[Enug]

I know the Y/T you mention and I do choose greyscale but I think the overlay mode influences the colour of the layer below. However, I'll keep playing with textures, canvases and blends, etc., it's fun experimenting and who knows what results I might get?:confused::confused::confused:

I have Steve Elliot's watercolour brushes but they are not 'watery' enough for me. The Gloop brush is very similar to the watercolor brushes.